Cake Pop Holder

I love cake pops so it was a natural thing to make them for my friend's wedding. I have to admit they aren't the most attractive pumpkin cake pops I have ever seen(for some reason my chocolate never coats them perfectly like Bakerella???) but they were tasty and they looked adorable if I do say so myself. We put one at each place setting. All I did was go grab a few branches that had fallen in the woods, sawed them in pieces, and screwed holes in the top. Then I stuck in the cake pop sucker stick. Easy, Peasy, cute and tasty. Oh yeah, I added a thank you tag too!

Total Costs for 80 cake pops favors and stands:

Wood = free
Sucker Sticks = $2.00
Devil's Food Cake Mix(X2) = $2.50
White Icing(X2)=$3.00
Clear Bags(X2) = $2.00
Orange Chocolate Melts(X3)=$4.50
Paper and Ink = on hand FREE
Total = $14.00 for 80 favors (not too shabby :P)

Card Stump - Wedding

For th fall wedding we we're going with the natural theme. We live in a woodsy area and we figured we could make a lot of things from tree stumps and limbs that had already fallen over. We wanted to dress up th gift table so we created a card stump to hold all the cards from the wedding. It was very easy and looked great at the wedding. All you do is find a medium size stumped and cut some angled cuts in it...Easy peasy.....and best of all FREE! And as an added bonus you have firewood after the wedding. More ideas coming soon..keep checking back.

Costs for Project:

Stump = Free

Chainsaw to cut stump = Free (on hand but you could borrow from someone)

Total Costs: Free and you have firewood after the wedding :)

Cupcake Table

I recently helped a friend plan and implement her fall wedding. Here is a sneak peak of the big day. One of my favorite parts of the decor was the cupcake table but there are lots more fun ideas and I will posting them very soon. I hope you like this cupcake table as much as I enjoyed pulling it together.

Project Total not including cupcake ingredients:

Stumps = Free

Chainsaw to cut stumps = Free(on hand)

Cupcake liners = $4.00

Total: $4.00

I made 2 batches of pumpkin and 2 batches of apple cider cupcakes. There was a total of around 120 cupcakes used in this display.

Halloween Favors

Are you like me and have a hard time throwing anything away? I'm always thinking in the back of my mind....I'm sure I can do something with that. So today we will talk about my obsession with anything cardboard. Yes I have two containers full of toilet paper rolls. I know it's a little crazy but what's even crazier is my MIL came over last week and asked if she could throw some of them away and I panicked a little. You know, I have been saving those for a long time for something :) So I decided that the annual halloween party might be a good time to part with some of them. Here is what I came up with - Toilet Paper Halloween Party Favors. I just squeezed one end together sewed up the end, Stuffed some tiny treats in there and squeezed the other end another way and sewed it up, Punched a circle, cut out a bat and slapped it on there. I think they turned out really cute and they look like those sour cream containers everyone is making nowadays. If you covered the roll with paper first they would probably be even cuter.

Multiplication Fun

Natalie made it through the 4's with our last game so this week we made up another game for 5's.

Here's what I needed:

Electrical tape

Lazy Susan

Scrapbook Number stickers

Here's what you do:

Section off Lazy Susan into sections for numbers 0 - 12

Create an arrow on the table out of electrical tape

Place scrapbook # stickers 0-12 in each section

Start spinning and have fun.

5 multiplied whatever # the arrow is pointing to after each spin.

Birthday Gift Packaging

We created this Birthday Present in a bottle for my daughters BFF. We stuffed it with fingernail polish, lip gloss, bracelets, nail care kit, makeup case, etc. We couldn't find a way to wrap that we liked so I spotted a two liter bottle I had been keeping for something else and wallah the birthday gift in a bottle was created for her

What you need:

A 2 liter bottle

An instrument to poke a hole in a bottle(I use my corn holders)

A pair of scissors

Adhesive(Tape, Glue Dots, or Tape Runner)

Scrapbook Paper or Fabric to put around bottle

Stamps(optional)

Ribbon(optional)

Here's what you do:

1.) Clean out a 2 liter bottle

2.) Poke a whole in the middle of the bottle as shown

3.) cut a flap into the bottle with scissors

4.) Wipe out any excess water that may be left in the bottle

5.) Stuff with gifts

6.) Tape flap shut with scotch tape(you don't want to use anything stronger because it will be too hard to remove later)

7.) Measure paper around bottle and use adhesive to stick on bottle. I used an adhesive runner but glue and or tape would work as well.

8.) Stamp name and adhere to bottle

9.) Tie Ribbon around bottle

It's that easy and my daughter is really excited about giving the "bottle" of goodies to her friend.

Dollar Store Crafts

Woohoo! My crow invitation idea was featured on Dollar Store Crafts. Go check it out :)

http://dollarstorecrafts.com/2011/09/make-crow-halloween-party-invitations/

Multiplication Fun - Playing Cards

Natalie made it through the 3's without a hitch. Woohoo! The egg carton was fun and we may revisit for another set of #'s but for now it's adios egg carton game and hello playing cards. For the 4's we will be using our "modified" set of playing cards to play card games to help learn and reninforce our 4's multiplication tables. Last night we played pick a card, high card, and another game we made up.

Here's what you do:

Find a set of playing cards...old ones are preferred because we are marking them up a little. If you have rook cards you wouldn't have to mark them up, but I didnt' want to lose my rook cards so I bought a cheap deck of cards and got the markers out.

Get out the A-K and mark them up. If you have a joker to use as a zero you can get out the A-Q. I made my Ace a 1, Joker a 0, Jack a 11, and Queen a 12.

For the first game I shuffled the cards and spread them out in my hand. I said pick a card any card to make it more fun and she started selecting. When she selected the card she had 5 to 10 seconds to shout out what 4 multiplied by that number is. If she got it right she won the card. Whoever had the most cards when all cards were selected wins.

Next Game I divided the cards into 2 stacks. We then both flipped our cards over and yelled the answer to what 4 multiplied by the number was. Whoever had the highest card one.

The next game is basically the same with the exception that I spread the cards out to look like a memory game and we flipped the cards that way. Since there is an uneven number of cards whoever wins the last set, wins the remaining card if they get the answer right.

We had a good time "playing cards" last night while learing multiplication.

These games are fun for your child and they almost forget they are learning at the same time. In addition to the games we play we also every couple of days make a practice test and set the minute on the oven timer to make sure she is getting the information from the games to the paper. This helps reinforce learning and gets her practice for how the test will be in the classroom.

I hope you have fun mixing it up a little. Check back in two weeks. Hopefully we will be soaring to our 5's.